foundations

THEO 202 — Christian Theology II: Christ, Salvation, and Last Things

Christian theology divides naturally into two halves. The first half asks who God is, what human beings are, and what has gone wrong with the humanity God made. THEO 201 took up that first half across the doctrines of God, humanity, and sin. The second half of Christian theology asks what God has done about the disorder the first half has named, and what God is still going to do. The answer turns on the person and work of Jesus Christ, on the salvation his life and death and resurrection accomplish, and on the consummation toward which the whole creation is moving. THEO 202 takes up that second half across the doctrines of Christology, soteriology, and eschatology. The course assumes the student has completed THEO 201 (which established the methodological framework and the doctrine of God) along with DISC 100-103, BIBL 210, and the BIBL 201 and BIBL 202 surveys. It goes deeper into three foundational loci: the person and work of Christ, the doctrine of salvation, and the doctrine of last things. For each doctrine, the course engages the primary theological sources directly rather than presenting disembodied summaries of them. The student meets Athanasius arguing that God became human so that humans might become divine, watches Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius clash at Ephesus, reads the Chalcedonian Definition of 451 in its own words, follows Anselm in Cur Deus Homo through the satisfaction argument, hears the Reformers articulate penal substitution, and engages modern voices including Gustaf Aulén, Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, N. T. Wright, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and John Stott. Multi-tradition sensitivity is at its sharpest in this course, because Christ, salvation, and last things are where Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions diverge most visibly. The goal is that a student who finishes THEO 202 can read a Christological claim and place it within the Chalcedonian tradition and the live modern debates, can recognize which atonement model is operating in a given theological statement and can articulate the strengths and weaknesses of each, can follow a soteriological argument across the Catholic-Orthodox-Protestant range, and can engage the eschatological debates (millennial positions, the question of hell, the nature of the intermediate state, the new creation) without forcing a single answer where faithful Christians hold several. Together with THEO 201, the course provides the complete undergraduate systematic theology foundation that THEO 501 Systematic Theology I and THEO 502 Systematic Theology II will build on at the graduate level.

10 hr
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Learning outcomes

  • Describe the biblical witness to the person of Christ (New Testament titles and claims), trace the development of Christology through the early councils from Nicaea (325) through Chalcedon (451), and articulate the Chalcedonian Definition's grammar of two natures in one person
  • Describe the main modern approaches to Christology (from above vs from below), engage representative modern voices (Barth, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann) on their own terms, and articulate how Oriental Orthodox miaphysitism relates to Chalcedonian orthodoxy
  • Describe the main historical models of the atonement (recapitulation, Christus Victor, satisfaction, penal substitution, moral influence, governmental) with representative proponents, identify the biblical texts each model draws on, and articulate the strengths and weaknesses of each
  • Describe the main Christian positions on justification (Protestant forensic, Catholic transformational, Orthodox theosis), articulate the biblical and theological reasoning behind each, and explain why the differences reflect deeper methodological and sacramental commitments
  • Describe the Calvinist, Arminian, Catholic, and Barthian positions on election and predestination, identify the biblical texts each position draws on, and articulate the pastoral and theological stakes
  • Describe the Orthodox doctrine of theosis (deification) as developed by the patristic and Byzantine tradition (especially Athanasius, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas), and articulate how theosis relates to Western soteriological frameworks
  • Describe the main positions on individual eschatology (death, intermediate state, the question of hell — eternal conscious torment, conditional immortality, universal reconciliation), identify representative proponents of each, and articulate which positions are majority and which are minority within the broader Christian tradition
  • Describe the main positions on cosmic eschatology (premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism; pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation rapture within premillennialism), identify the biblical texts each position draws on, and articulate the range of faithful Christian positions
  • Engage primary theological sources in excerpted form (Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, Moltmann, Aulén, Wright, Stott, von Balthasar, Gregory Palamas, and others) and follow their arguments even when you disagree with them
  • Apply the orientation skills of THEO 201 and THEO 202 to an unfamiliar theological claim in Christology, soteriology, or eschatology, producing a responsible first reading that identifies its methodological commitments, its historical context, and its place within the range of faithful Christian positions

The Person of Christ

Module 1 takes up the doctrine of the person of Christ in three lessons. Lesson 1.1 reads the New Testament witness directly, identifying the main Christological titles and the early pre-Pauline hymns that show very high Christology was present in earliest Christian worship within two decades of the crucifixion. Lesson 1.2 traces the development through the early councils from Nicaea (325) through Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), and articulates the Chalcedonian Definition's grammar of one person in two natures with its four negative adverbs. Lesson 1.3 takes up the main modern approaches to Christology (from above vs from below), engages Barth and Bonhoeffer and Moltmann on their own terms, and presents the Oriental Orthodox miaphysite position fairly alongside Chalcedonian orthodoxy, including the modern ecumenical consensus that the two traditions substantively agree.

The Work of Christ — The Atonement

Module 2 takes up the doctrine of the work of Christ — the atonement — across three lessons. Lesson 2.1 reads the patristic models, beginning with Irenaeus's recapitulation in Against Heresies and the broader Christus Victor frame that Athanasius developed in On the Incarnation. Lesson 2.2 turns to the medieval and Reformation models, reading Anselm's satisfaction theory in Cur Deus Homo, the Reformation development of penal substitution from Calvin onward, and Peter Abelard's contrasting moral influence model. Lesson 2.3 takes up the modern retrieval of the multi-model atonement tradition through Gustaf Aulén's 1931 Christus Victor and N. T. Wright's 2016 The Day the Revolution Began, and explains why the atonement has historically supported multiple legitimate theological models rather than a single definitive theory.

Soteriology

Module 3 takes up the doctrine of salvation in four lessons. Lesson 3.1 reads the Protestant-Catholic conversation on justification and the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) that has been joined by the Methodists, Reformed, and Anglicans. Lesson 3.2 surveys the main approaches to sanctification (Reformed, Wesleyan, Catholic, Orthodox). Lesson 3.3 takes up election and predestination across the Calvinist, Arminian, Catholic, and Barthian positions. Lesson 3.4 takes up theosis as the integrating soteriological frame of the Eastern Christian tradition, reading Athanasius, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas on their own terms.

Eschatology — Last Things

Module 4 takes up the doctrine of last things in three lessons. Lesson 4.1 reads individual eschatology — death, the intermediate state, and the three historic positions on the question of hell (eternal conscious torment, conditional immortality, universal reconciliation) with their representative proponents. Lesson 4.2 reads cosmic eschatology — the return of Christ, the three main millennial positions (premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism), the dispensationalist version of premillennialism, the rapture positions, and the new creation. Lesson 4.3 takes up the Christian eschatological hope as the theological frame within which the problem of evil has its most characteristic Christian answer, and articulates how Christian eschatology shapes ethics and action in the present.

Synthesis — The Complete Undergraduate Foundation

Module 5 is the synthesis lesson that ties THEO 201 and THEO 202 together as the complete undergraduate systematic theology foundation. The single lesson traces how the two halves of the course pair fit together (the classical ordering of systematic theology from God through last things), names the major theological threads that run through both courses, hands the student off to the graduate-level THEO 501-503 sequence and to the other Cathedra theology and biblical-studies courses, and offers a capstone Evaluate-tier exercise that applies the orientation skills of the full course pair to an unfamiliar theological argument. There is no module quiz for Module 5.